They're not your typical band - in fact, there's very little you could say is typical when it comes to Winter People. Certainly not the formation of the group, as multi-talented member Dylan Baskind explains. "I [had] tried to form some bands before, but the people I knew socially were interested in music but not dedicated to the idea. So I had to start reaching out beyond those who I knew well, to such a point that I began asking anybody who I knew was vaguely interested in music. Jane... I approached her in the city at a club and I knew she was someone I knew through someone I knew through someone I knew, and I’d seen that she was interested... I didn’t even ask her if she wanted to be in the band, I said, 'Do you know anybody who plays music that would want to be in a band?' She said, 'I play the violin, do you want to give me a go?'"

WINTER PEOPLE - GALLONS

And so it was that six strangers come together to become Winter People. Playing to crowds in Sydney, they soon developed a reputation for a unique live performance - which isn't all that inconceivable, given that the band possesses five vocalists and two violinists. Then came their well-received 'Gallons' EP - so the next step was inevitably an album, 'A Year At Sea', due the 21st September.

Much like the LP's title, the journey was quite an epic one for Dylan and the rest of the band. "In terms of the creative process, I think that it is very akin symbolically to a journey on the ocean, to spending this year out at sea, or a period of time in which you exile yourself to this place, this unknown, this dangerous place, and you fashion something that you have... experience at in the unconscious and you travel that dark zone back onto the land."

The fact that people would voluntarily leave their homes, go out and come and exchange money to watch us play music is surprising and pleasing.

With such a unconventionally composed band, there's no rules by which the album follows in regards to genre or sound. "I don’t want to have an album of the same mood," Dylan observes. "I would describe it as a personality in the sense of... people are like that. People are never just one way. There’s no one you know well that’s just that one way of being - there’s him when he’s angry and him when he’s happy and him when he’s depressed. I sort of think a personality would be my description [of the album]."

Winter People are celebrating the release of 'A Year At Sea' by hitting the road for a national tour throughout September and October. "Every time we’ve played a show, especially outside of Sydney, my supposition is always that the support band must have a fan base here," Dylan reveals. "The fact that people would voluntarily leave their homes, go out and come and exchange money to watch us play music is surprising and pleasing."

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